


The underdog.

by towards



Category: South Park
Genre: Drabble, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 19:53:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12942525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards/pseuds/towards
Summary: History teaches you to root for the underdog. To ally yourself with the weakest, the losers, to see yourself in the hopeless and draw strength from their determination.Practicality tells you to vote for the strong.





	The underdog.

History teaches you to root for the underdog. To ally yourself with the weakest, the losers, to see yourself in the hopeless and draw strength from their determination.

Practicality tells you to vote for the strong.

Tweek knows that these games are designed not to thin the herd, but to remind them of their helplessness. They are locked in a system, doomed to play this game of Russian roulette until they age out of the system. Craig tells him he’s being paranoid, murmurs sweet words against the sweaty crown of his head when he wakes from dreams that feel more like prophecies.

‘There are three thousand other kids, Tweek. Kids that voluntarily put their name in more. We’re safe.’

A week later he’s looking up at Craig when his name is called, his voice raising to shout his compliance. His offering. He’ll go too. He’ll go to hell and back for him. He won’t let him die alone. And so they lace their fingers together as they walked the death march to the podium. Their parents wept, but he knew that his father would plan to replace him before his body was cold.

No one applauded. 

No one spoke.

Craig calls him an idiot through years when they’re in private. Tweek kisses his tears away, promises it will be okay. It will all be okay.

Craig stood a fighting chance, their trainers said. He was tall and broad, strong chested and able to think on his feet. They ranked him a solid seven. Sponsors sent him their colors.

Tweek netted a three. Withdrawal leaves him trembling and pale, barely able to stand on his feet. They tell him he’ll probably die first, so he should make a show. If he wants Craig to live - and he does, more than anything - he needs to play up his helplessness.

They have him leaning against his taller boyfriend during the press junket. Playing the role of the small, helpless boyfriend. They say he’s sick, but won’t say with what. Play up the mystery, the tragedy, and the sycophants eat it up. They can’t get enough. This is their soap opera, their entertainment, people are dying but they want to live their tragedy over fancy dinners and lavish parties.

The night before theyre set to fight, Tweek cradles Craig to his chest. 

“If you die, I’ll follow,” Craig says softly, the barest waver to his voice. “No hesitation.”

“Then I can’t die,” Tweek says in turn, stroking his cheeks. “I owe you dinner.”

By the time they’re in the ring it’s been four months. The meth is gone from his system. Underneath his leather armor he’s no longer wasted away under addictions cruel power. He holds Craig’s hand, counts down with the booming voice of the announcer, and gives way to instinct.

What history does not tell you about the underdog is that it’s abused.

It’s starving.

And it’s rabid.

Size and temperament give way to animal brutality. Tweek is small and slight but that only helps them not to see him coming. He pushes Craig back and leaps forward, a knife in hand and bloodlust in his eyes.

He can’t die.

They have to get out.

And so he cuts their path to victory. Because Craig doesn’t have the stomach, when it comes down to it. He’s softer than he lets on, more vulnerable, but Tweek can thank his upbringing for what it gives him. He compartmentalizes, analyzes, shoves his feelings down and uses paranoia as a shield to keep them afloat.

He gets a laceration in his stomach that gets infected. He loses a leg to a trap. Craig’s sponsor sends them medicine with a note attached. 'Creek is end game’. He nearly vomits.

Craig loses four fingers and a chunk of his face. But he survives. Tweek uses his body and mind as a shield He carries his boyfriend out. Holds him close tells him that their deal is still on, if he dies he will follow, and so he can’t.

They don’t talk about it after. Weeks after, when Tweek no longer screams at the sound of a canon and they can stand to be apart for more than a few seconds. PTSD lingers, he’s never able to use a knife and the sight of an orange hoodie reduces him to hysterical weeping.

Tweek thinks it ruins them a little. Not completely. They fracture, but hold together. Somewhere deep and untouchable, a crack they can’t mend. He thinks of the names of people who had once been friends and now were only faces on the street, steering clear.

He wakes screaming and Craig is always there to bring him back. They will not bow. But he supposed they did die out there. Whatever came back was not Tweek Tweak and Craig Tucker. Not in whole parts. People do not laud them as heroes - not even as survivors, just monsters.

Not them.

Him.

The underdog sits in the shelter after its victory. Scarred, missing fur, limping and aching with the phantom pain of missing limbs and lost lives.

People do not want to see themselves in the aftermath of the underdog.

But Craig holds him close and kisses the scar where an eye had been. Threads their fingers together and rubs the knots out of his mangled leg, promising kindness and delivering serenity.

He is home.

And that is all that matters.


End file.
